Saturday, June 18, 2005

Imagine that you looked in the window of your neighbor's house and saw that he was keeping members of his family tied to chairs in the living room. What would be your moral obligation in this situation? Would you have any responsibility at all?

The thing is, I still feel that the world has an obligation to help overthrow tyrants. But, look at how it's been done! Over 20,000 civilians killed?! Was this worth it? Saddam was nuts and the sanctions were probably worse than the war. But, isn't the situation now as bad as it was under Saddam? Or worse.

Imagine that one of the neighbors decided not to wait for the police, or to apply pressure on the man to let his family go, or even to form a committee to negotiate. Imagine instead that he ran into the neighbor's house firing a machine-gun wildly. What is the possible moral value of such an action?